


immersion

by sundaycat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Established Relationship, Kink Meme, M/M, Nonsexual Breathplay, Simulated Drowning, man i don't even know how to tag this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:26:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sundaycat/pseuds/sundaycat
Summary: “I want you to hold me under,” Jon says. The water continues to run behind him.Martin looks confused. “Under—the water?” he says.“Yes.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 3
Kudos: 115
Collections: Rusty Kink





	immersion

**Author's Note:**

> for the kink meme prompt: "Relistened to 132 8:22 And that moment between the sound of thunder and Jon's first word as he realizes what's about to happen made me sit up. He's dead silent before he starts to make panicked sounds as he realizes he's about to be submerged in water as well. Suffocated and buried.
> 
> Can someone give me Jon either revisiting that memory or maybe even deciding to trust someone to hold him under as a way to confront that? Either to regain control or because he finds he likes it."

Jon dreams about it again. He always knows when it’s going to be this memory, even before the worst of it starts, because he can’t see anything. As far as his vision goes is dark. He can feel, though, all the stronger without his most familiar sense to rely on. The feeling of dirt and stone scraping against his clothes and his skin is as close in the memory as it was in real life. The narrowness of the tunnel feels just as crushing. He can smell it, even, the damp, heavy, earthy-smelling air, breathable for now, but for how much longer? Every breath he takes looms densely in his awareness, wondering how many of them he has left before he’s used up all the oxygen in the tiny, closed-off space. He knows suffocating won’t kill him here. It does nothing to dampen the fear.

It doesn’t end the way it really did, with him finding his way eventually. Instead, in the dream, he crawls on perpetually without making any progress. There are no markers of how far he’s advanced in the dark crevices that he knows only by feel. He could have gone for miles, or he could have hardly moved. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here in the stretched-out time of the dream. He inches on into nowhere until he wakes up, gasping for air.

Jon dreams about a lot of unpleasant things, and in the grander scheme of the jumble of terror he usually experiences when he’s sleeping, this scene is fairly mild. But in the shower, he thinks of something, and he gets the idea that there might be something he can do about this one.

“Martin,” he asks after dinner that evening, “would you be willing to try something with me?” 

Martin blinks at him. “What is it?”

“It’s…just something I want to try. You’re going to think it’s strange.”

“Jon,” says Martin, “you’ve got that weird look. What is it?”

“Let me show you,” says Jon.

* * *

Martin watches as Jon runs the bath. He lets the water fill the tub a few inches before he turns back to Martin.

“I want you to hold me under,” Jon says. The water continues to run behind him.

Martin looks confused. “Under—the water?” he says.

“Yes.”

“I don’t—why would I do that?”

This is the part that Jon’s been looking forward to the least, the act of having to explain it to Martin. There’s no way to describe it that doesn’t sound weird and kind of scary, and God knows Jon puts out enough of that quality already. “It’s…something I think is going to help me,” he says.

This is not enough of an explanation to satisfy Martin, as much as Jon might hope. “Help you do what?” he says.

Jon shifts uncomfortably. “I need to not be able to breathe for a little while,” he says, “but in a way that isn’t going to actually harm me.” 

Martin frowns, apprehensive. “Why…do you want to do that?”

Jon doesn’t know how to say it. He doesn’t know how to put that memory into Martin’s hands, for him to feel the heavy sense of it, and he doesn’t want to. “It’s a personal problem,” he says. “It’s not going to be dangerous or anything. You’re not going to let me drown.”

“I—what if I do!” Martin splutters. “I mean, not on purpose, obviously, but if you want me to—to hold you down, how am I supposed to know if you’re drowning or not if you can’t talk—”

“I just need you to leave my hands free,” says Jon. He’s considered this. “If I really start having trouble, I’ll grab your wrist, and then you let me back up.”

“Why do you want _me_ to do this? Why can’t you just pretend to drown yourself on your own? I, not that I want you to do that, please don’t do that—”

“Partially for practical reasons,” says Jon. “I want someone else around as a lifeguard, in case I go too far and I can’t get myself out. Not that I think that’s going to happen,” he reassures at the stricken look on Martin’s face. And then the deeper part, the part that feels more vulnerable to admit— “And it…wouldn’t be the same if I was the one doing it,” he says. “I don’t want to be in control of it.” He catches Martin’s nervous gaze. “What I’m saying is I want you to do this because I trust you, Martin.”

Martin hesitates. He bites his lip. “Jon, you were right, this is really weird.”

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Jon says.

“No, I—” Martin draws in a long breath, seeming to steady himself. “I’ll do it. If this is what you really want.”

Jon feels something like relief. “It is,” he says.

Martin watches as Jon starts to undress. “Is—is being naked part of it?” he says. “This isn’t some kind of sex thing, is it?”

“Well, I’m not going to get in the bath with my clothes on, Martin,” says Jon. He leaves his glasses on the counter. “And no, it’s not a ‘sex thing.’” As he finishes taking his pants off, he turns the faucet off, then gets in the tub.

The water is warm. It’s not like being in the Buried, which wasn’t warm, but wasn’t cold either. His surroundings there there seemed to have no temperature at all, now that he recalls it, their only characteristic being their weight, their pressure, the way they crept up on him and pushed down on him. They had no features of their own because their only purpose was to deprive, to block him off from what he needed.

This water, here, is easy to slip into. The warmth feels pleasant on his skin, and more importantly, he knows where it ends, where the barrier between breathing and drowning is and where it will remain. Jon shuts his eyes and sinks down until it’s up to his chest.

Martin has knelt by the side of the bathtub, and Jon can hear him shifting beside him. “Okay,” Martin says, “what do I do?”

“Put your hands on my shoulders,” Jon says. “And then just push down. I won’t make it difficult.”

He feels Martin’s hands rest gingerly on either side of his neck. “Okay, I’m—should I go now?”

“Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it. Just go,” says Jon.

He gets a split second of warning anyway, the moment when he feels Martin start to push him down drawn out just long enough to allow him to take in a last deep breath. Then his head hits the water, and he’s under.

The panic comes on sooner than he thought it would. Jon had thought he would have a few moments of adjusting to his condition before it started to set it, but it’s instantaneous, swelling up instinctively the moment his nose goes under. His body wants to pop back up immediately, but he fights it and forces himself to stay down.

It’s not so bad after a few seconds. He can feel his hair fanning out around his head, weightless in the water. All the sound around him has become muffled underwater, and he can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. He can feel Martin’s hands on his shoulders. The need for air is becoming uncomfortable, but still bearable.

Martin lets him up quickly, his hands lifting off Jon after only a couple seconds. Jon actually stays under on his own for another few moments, until Martin plunges back under to grab Jon and pull him back to the surface.

“Jon—”

Jon opens his eyes. “Longer than that,” he says. 

Martin looks concerned. “I—was that—”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll let you know if you need to let up.” Jon pushes a strand wet of hair out of his eyes, dripping water down his face. “I trust you. Please trust me.”

Martin’s face is uncertain, but he settles his hands back on Jon’s shoulders. “Alright.”

He pushes Jon down again. 

Jon feels the same initial flood of alarm when he’s cut off from the air, but it subsides to a manageable level more quickly this time. He’s becoming more used to the sensation of holding his breath. He becomes aware of how his whole body floats just slightly in the water, his weight not totally settling on the bottom of the tub. His spine feels light and free from gravity.

As he’s held under, longer this time, the need to breathe grows more urgent. He lets his body’s insistence build up again. The seconds go on and the discomfort begins to warp into a more frantic need, the instinctive drive to move, fight back, escape, and as Jon forces his muscles to remain still against what they want to do, the feeling mushrooms into a familiar current of fear—

Martin’s hands disappear from his shoulders. Jon shoots up and gasps for air. All of the panic disperses so instantly and so easily the moment he comes back up, and it’s such a reassurance, that something as plain as air can make everything better all at once.

Jon keeps his eyes shut this time. He doesn’t want the white tile of the bathroom, the physical presence of the place he’s in. The sight of somewhere familiar takes him out of it. When it’s just the water touching his senses, there’s nothing anchoring him to the rest of the heavy, overwhelming world, just Martin’s voice above him and his hands on his body.

“Jon?”

“Good,” he tells Martin. “Again.”

Martin gives him even longer this time. Everything becomes so simple when he’s submerged. The warmth of the water is pleasant around him until it turns suffocating, and then there’s nothing else. Any other sensation gets drowned out by the more pressing demand for oxygen, and he has no thoughts for once, no perception of the rest of the world outside the water. His whole universe boils down and becomes so blessedly uncomplicated when there’s no room to think about anything but air. Everything goes away except for the warm dark behind his eyelids.

Jon keeps his chest still until he’s sure he can’t take it anymore, and then he keeps going a little longer. He finds that when he thinks he’s approaching his limit, there’s always a little more beyond that he can endure, and he bumps up against the edge of what he thinks he can withstand again and again until Martin releases him.

When he finally gets that lungful of air, it feels so good, such a relief. It’s the sweetest, simplest thing, and it feels good to made grateful for it again. 

“Just one more,” he pants as he catches his breath.

“Okay,” says Martin.

Jon lets his head drop under one more time. Things go quiet again under the water, a layer of silence between him and the world. Again, he holds his breath.

He feels the buildup of urgency inside his chest. The water is indifferent and uncompromising, always the same around him no matter how frantic he gets. As he passes that threshold where his lungs begin to beg for air that isn’t there, he lets himself sink into the helplessness of being held under. There’s nothing he can do. He lets himself become desperate, knowing that the surface is just there. Finally, Martin lets go of him, and he resurfaces to gulp in a huge, beautiful breath.

He opens his eyes, and he’s back in the bathroom, and Martin is there, and Jon is dripping wet but has all the air he wants. He’s a little lightheaded as he sits up.

Martin is looking at him with mild concern on his face again. “Was that okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” Jon says. His skin feels cool coming back into contact with the air. “That was perfect.”

Martin helps him out of the tub and brings him a towel. Jon leans into him as he pats him dry, and Martin returns the gesture, even when water from strands of Jon’s wet hair soak into his shirt.

“Do you think it helped?” Martin says. “With…whatever you were trying to do?”

“I do,” says Jon. He wraps an arm around Martin’s waist and feels Martin relax into the touch, comforted by a display of affection a bit more familiar than the one Jon’s just finished conducting him through. “Thank you.”


End file.
